Frequently Asked Questions

The Explore York Libraries and Archives lottery is a weekly lottery costing £1 per entry, per week. Our weekly lottery enables us to raise much-needed funds to help support our cause. The draw is run every Friday and each entry has the chance to win one of four amazing prizes, including the top prize of £25,000!

The Unity Lottery is a lottery platform which charities of all shapes and sizes can use to run their own fundraising lotteries. The Unity Lottery platform is administered by Sterling Management Centre Limited, a licensed External Lottery Manager (ELM) by the Gambling Commission.

For every £1 played, at least 50p goes directly to Explore York Libraries and Archives as profit. The other 50p is split between the prize pot and administration costs.

When you win a prize, this is covered by the Unity prize pot. This means that charities using Unity for their fundraising lotteries can offer a £25,000 jackpot and smaller prizes to their players.

Each £1 entry has a 1 in 63 chance of winning one of four fantastic prizes. Every entry in Unity has an equal chance of winning, no matter which charity is being supported or how many players that good cause has in their lottery.

Yes, every entry has an equal chance of winning, and the winning numbers are drawn at random.

For every £1 you play each week, you'll receive a unique 6-digit lottery number.

Every Friday, a winning number is drawn at random. Match your digits to win up to £25,000!

The Explore York Libraries and Archives lottery is a number match game. We generate a random 6-digit winning number sequence. If your digits are in same positions as the digits in the winning number sequence, you win a prize!

For example, if the winning number sequence was 123456, the lottery number 163057 would be a 3-digit winning match; because 3 digits are positioned in the same place in the sequence.

3 digit match = 5 entries into the next draw

4 digit match = £25

5 digit match = £1,000

6 digit match = £25,000

The Unity Lottery platform is what Explore York Libraries and Archives uses to run the lottery. As all lottery administration is handled by Sterling Management Centre Limited, who provide the Unity Lottery platform, all lottery communications come from them.

You can view our lottery rules here. The purpose of these rules is to ensure that you are informed about the terms of playing the Explore York Libraries and Archives lottery and to promote responsible gambling.

Yes. Explore York Libraries and Archives operates the lottery compliantly under licence from City of York Council and all administration is handled by Sterling Management Centre Limited, a certified External Lottery Manager (ELM) with the Gambling Commission.

You can contact one of our friendly members of staff at the Unity Lottery helpline on 0370 050 9240 to discuss the lottery or your membership. (Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) calls are charged at your local rate.

Alternatively, you can contact us through our contact form.

You can Enter online using Direct Debit or debit card payment or Download a PDF form to print out and post with your Cheque payment to our Freepost address. You can also use the PDF form to join by Direct Debit or debit card payment. If you need help with joining our lottery please call 0370 050 9240.

No. Your lottery number is randomly allocated when you sign up and stays with you for the duration of your membership in the Explore York Libraries and Archives lottery. Once you have entered, you will be sent confirmation of your unique lottery number by post.

Yes. Each £1 lottery entry grants you 1 ‘chance’ to win a prize. In accordance with our commitment to responsible gambling, however, we allow a maximum of 20 chances for each Friday draw.

The minimum age to enter the Explore York Libraries and Archives lottery is 18.

If you are trying to submit your Direct Debit card details and you lose your internet connection, we advise you to contact our helpline on 0370 050 9240 to confirm if we have received your entry.

No. Unfortunately, we cannot claim Gift Aid on funds raised through the lottery.

If you have signed up online, you will receive a welcome email which will detail confirmation of your entry into the lottery. From this point, or if you have signed up using a PDF sign up form, you will receive a confirmation letter within the next 21 days containing details of your lottery number(s) and our intent to claim funds if you have signed up by Direct Debit.

Once we have received your payment, you will be entered into each available weekly lottery draw as long as you have credit available against your lottery number.

Following registration, it is necessary to complete several administrative processes which include verifying your payment details with your bank, claiming the funds from your bank account and the funds being received.

The monthly cost breakdown of £4.34 for playing the lottery is based on paying £1 per week over a 52-week year. Direct Debits for this amount are collected once a month and sometimes there will be five weeks in a month, so the additional 34p is to build up credit to cover the fifth week in these instances.

The winning numbers are available every Friday afternoon at www.UnityLottery.co.uk

There's no need to claim any prizes if you win. If you play by Direct Debit, then your prize will be paid automatically into the account you use to pay for your lottery chances! If you play by another payment method, we will send any winning cheques directly to your registered address! If you match 3 digits in the correct sequence for a prize of 5 additional entries, these will be automatically included in the next available lottery draw.

If you want to check your lottery numbers, you can contact our friendly helpline team on 0370 050 9240 (Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) calls are charged at your local rate.

If you want to cancel your lottery membership, please contact our friendly helpline team on 0370 050 9240 (Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) calls are charged at your local rate.

Yes. If you have changed your address, it is important that you notify us, otherwise, we won’t be able to send you your winning cheque. To inform us of an address change, please contact our friendly hotline team on 0370 050 9240 (Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) calls are charged at your local rate.

Responsible gambling means staying in control of how much time and money we spend on gambling. Responsible gambling means not spending more money or time than we can reasonably afford on gambling activities, keeping in mind all our other responsibilities in life.

To speak to someone about a gambling problem, contact the BeGambleAware confidential helpline on 0808 8020 133 or visit their website at www.gambleaware.co.uk for further information.

If you have any concerns, please get in touch with us on 0370 050 9240 or use our contact form, and we will endeavour to answer any queries you may have. (Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) calls are charged at your local rate.

If you feel you may be susceptible to gambling problems and would like to ask that you are excluded from the lottery, please download our self-exclusion policy.

Any good causes can set up a lottery using the Unity Lottery platform – if you would like to recommend Unity to a charity, please direct them to visit our website.

If you are fundraising for good causes, then we’d love to hear from you! Please visit our website.